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ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Welcome to This Being Human. I’m your host Abdul-Rehman Malik. On this podcast, I talk to extraordinary people from all over the world whose life, ideas and art are shaped by Muslim culture.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

I never really knew how to do comedy. I learned the hard way, by making mistakes and getting in trouble. That hasn’t stopped. I’m still getting in trouble.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Today, comedian Nazeem Hussain.

 

Comedy contains immense power. It can make us forget our troubles. It can expose hypocrisy. And maybe it can open up some hearts – just a crack – for people to see the world from a different perspective for an hour or so.

 

Nazeem Hussain definitely has a unique perspective. He is the son of Muslim, Sri Lankan immigrants, raised by a single Mom in Melbourne, Australia.

 

But despite being somewhat of an outsider – or maybe because of it – Nazeem became a full-fledged comedy star in his country, with two of his own TV shows, a handful of awards, and a Netflix special under his belt. His most recent comedy special has the incredibly funny title Hussain in the Membrane. Last year, Nazeem even released a children’s book, called Hy-Larious Hyena!.

 

When we connected, Nazeem was just getting ready to head off for a string of tour dates in New Zealand.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah, it’s actually in two days time. So I’m just frantically trying to get my life in order here before I head over and leave my wife with a young baby.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

It seems like the shows are almost sold out or sold out.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah, they’re pretty, they’re very pleasantly surprised or happy with just ticket sales. But now I’m like, oh gosh, there is an excited audience waiting for some good jokes. And I just privately – they will hear this if they hear it after the shows – but I haven’t done these jokes in a while. So I’ve got to, I’ve got to dust off the notepad and and just remember. Because it’s also just like, you start a joke here. And then as you work on it, gig to gig, little things change and you add bits and pieces. So it’s just kind of trying to get back in the headspace of that old show. That old show as in like the show that I haven’t done in months.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I mean, I guess there’s always so much happening, right? I imagine that as a writer and a comedian, you’re constantly generating and playing with ideas, right? So even stuff like a few weeks back feels like, Oh…

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

That’s not where I’m at.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah, absolutely. It always feels like you’re never really up-to-date. For me, the scariest thing is doing new material, you know, because before you’ve heard a laugh or the silence, it’s just you have to trust your own kind of instinct or your ego. And you’re trying to convince yourself that this is funny. And then I guess you just doubt yourself the whole time like, “Oh god, is this going to be the worst thing ever? Am I even funny anymore? Like, how is it going to fly?” And then you try it and it gets a laugh and then it’s awesome. But then that quickly dies a few gigs later when you’re like, “Oh, this feels old.” And the comedian who just introduced me has seen me do it, and it’s just embarrassed– I’m always really embarrassed doing material in front of people that have seen it before. Even for these Auckland shows, to publicize the shows, we put up clips – you know, obviously everything’s old, it’s stand up – and then people commenting, “Oh my god, this is so funny. Let’s go see this guy.” And then I’m like, oh no, now I can’t do that bit in the show because there’s at least one person that has seen that joke.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

One of your more recent offerings has really amused me and intrigued me. And you recently released a kids book called Hy-Larious Hyena! about a prankster hyena. And of course, you know, in this book, you know, his pranks kind of go wrong and he has to deal with the aftermath of it. And I immediately thought, how much of Nazeem is in Harry the Hyena prankster?

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Oh, my gosh. I would say it was probably the easiest and most fun thing to write. Yeah, it’s a prankster hyena who takes his jokes too far and is constantly told off by relatives in the pack. Which is just it’s just me. It was so easy to write because I just wrote from what I knew. Growing up, my earliest memories were just, you know, I’d be sitting on the front step outside our family home, just talking to strangers as they walked past, putting on silly accents. And my whole family would be inside just watching. I just used to like getting the surprise reaction from the stranger walking past and then the laughter from inside. And then, yeah, occasionally I’d take it too far, make fun of the person’s appearance and get in trouble. Not really knowing where the line was. But yeah, the book is definitely based on kind of like The Lion King. I guess that’s the closest comparison to the world that Harry or Harun lives in. He comes from a multigenerational family. They’re pretty broke. And in The Lion King, they’re like the bad characters just because they want to eat. You know, Simba is told by his dad to stay away from the Shadowlands because that’s where the villains are. And really when you see them, you know, they just want to have food like the rest of the animals, but they’re just shunned. They’re just shoved in this ghetto. You know, this elephant graveyard. But they’re actually the funniest characters and they’re voiced by comedians, and you know. So, I always identified I guess with those characters in The Lion King, you know. They make fun. They don’t have much. They’re always wanting what they don’t have. And that was us.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I’ve never thought about it like that before. Now, do you provide this commentary for your young ones or your nieces or your nephews when you watch Lion King? Are you like the political commentary on it for them?

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

No, not really. I’m always the guy who’s like probably interrupting the film, talking to the adults about what I think. I also just like, there’s so many films I Iike watching that you just have to turn off that part of your brain because you can’t enjoy most films now if you’re thinking about the politics of stuff. And there are so many great films and just great bits of music and art that if you think too much, you’re not going to enjoy it. So, I try to at least let the kids enjoy it while I interrupt the film for the adults. “Like check out this bit, you know, I read an article.”

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

So is this kid’s book your kind of surreptitious, devious way of like planting these ideas in the minds of children early? “Like, be critical. Let’s change the narrative.” You know, you’re known for your fairly edgy humour. So I wonder if you’re preparing a new generation for your really edgy stuff.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

I honestly reckon, I’ve never really considered myself an edgy comedian that just says things that are… I’m not trying to be contrarian. But I think because we did grow up fairly broke, we did come from a community that was seen as fairly weird, on the margins. You know, Australia is a pretty Anglo-Saxon, white centric sort of culture. And I probably wouldn’t be that way if I felt probably more part of the center, a bit more of the– like if my culture was just normal. So I feel like if I was to read a story that I would have enjoyed as a kid that really spoke to me, it would be more like this book where it centered our experiences. I think I wrote this book from well, firstly because I could do characters as I’m reading them for my kid. So he would laugh when I’d read it to him. So I was like, what book is going to make my kid laugh? But also, what is a book that makes kids who feel a little different and, you know, like they don’t have it all, how do you, how do you make their lives feel fun? And I think looking back, we had a really fun time, only because we didn’t have a whole lot going on. Like my mum made it a real thing in the way she parented to make us feel appreciative by what we didn’t have, by just always involving us in community work, whether we’d go to nursing homes. So you’d always have an appreciation for people that have it a bit tougher than you, or we would joke about not having a lot of food or just always having to find discounts at shopping centers and knowing that the cheap yogurt day. It was just a sort of like we were code switching a lot. So when we were at school, we would pretend– there’s a bit of a shame around being poor. But at home, like we were a tight unit because we all had to chip in and find ways to make it work. But I feel like a book like this, it’s a messy family. There’s a character, the old uncle Mo. Even though hyenas don’t speak English, he speaks broken English. But, you know, just getting told off at all times. But like, that was just at all times. Open love. Everyone said what they thought. And you always knew when you were in the right, when you’re in the wrong, where you stood.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

For Nazeem, family wasn’t just a place of comfort and understanding. It’s also where he learned a lot about humor.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

When I grew up, I remember we used to have lots of parties at our home and baila, a type of folk music. But there’ll be music playing and then almost like roast battles between the uncle and auntie, like they’d be making jokes about the other person in rhyme, and then everyone would laugh and it’ll go back and forth. And it’s really harsh but funny. And it was just that sort of culture I grew up around. Like humor is a very Sri Lankan thing, not taking yourself too seriously.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

On top of that, his Mom gave him a sense of confidence that helped him in his future career.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

One time my older sister was getting bullied, and my mum went to the principal, just straight to the principal’s office. My mum said, this is early 90s, maybe late 80s, “My daughter’s getting bullied by this kid.” And the principal said to her, she said, “Mrs. Hussein, I think you’re just exaggerating. You know, don’t worry about it. Kids will sort out themselves”. And my mom said, “No you need to do something about it.” And the principal just didn’t. And it turns out the principal was playing tennis, was good friends with that bully’s mom. So my mom was like, oh, I’m not getting anywhere here. So she went to the local politician’s office, who at the time was also the premier elect, the governor of the state that we live in, of Victoria. And she walked in and the receptionist said, “Can I help you?” And my mum said, “Is Jeff Kennett here?”. Like the premier, like the guy that runs the state. And she said, “Yeah, sorry, do you have an appointment? Who are you?” And my mum saw that he was in there and she walked past, went into the premier’s office, closed the door behind her, spoke to him. 45 minutes later my mum walks back into the principal’s office with the premier by her side and then the principal stands up and says, “Oh, Mr. Kennett.” The premier hadn’t visited the school until this point. And the premier just says, “Listen, could you just do what Mrs. Hussein says, please just do whatever this woman says.” And the bullying just stopped. So like you never mess with my mum. She doesn’t know how to do passive aggressive. She doesn’t get how to talk in the grey. She’s just all out. “I love you so much” or “I’m so upset with you.” It’s all out. So I guess I got that sort of confidence or that way of about myself from her.

 

But then I just used to– like again at community events on weekends, I used to grow up around Muslims, going to Muslim camps and Sri Lankan camps. And I remember like, at times there would be little events and things like that. And sometimes a projector would break down or the speaker would be late. And they’d be like, “Oh, Nazeem, Nazeem. Get up here and just talk to the audience while we figure this out.” So I’d just get up and just talk rubbish to the audience and just interview people and there’s a talk show at the time called Rove Live and we ended up making this called Nazeem Live. And I would interview, like the Sheikh or sometimes the visiting psychologist or whatever. And again, I had no limits to my comedy. So I remember at one point I made jokes about a guy’s appearance. And then I started making jokes about my mum. Everyone was laughing. I was killing it. And, you know, I was the most popular kid at this camp. And the Sheikh, he stands up and he says, “Nazeem. You have back bitten your mother. This is a grave sin. You need to apologize to her.” And he stands up and he walks out of the room, a couple of hundred kids there, and everyone just stopped silent… Like the big Sheikh had spoken. And I was there, mic in hand, and I was like, aw. It was the first time I’d faced a consequence for my comedy. So then I got off stage, camp finished a few days later, the bus arrives back at the mosque where all the parents are picking us up. And then I got off the bus and the Sheikh was there, “You go apologize.” So I went up to my mum. I said, “Oh, mum, you know, I made a joke about you at camp.” And then she goes, “Oh, what was it? What was it?” And I was like, “No, no, I’m very sorry for committing gheebah, talking bad behind your back. And then she looked up and she saw the Sheikh like, very upset. So she said, “Oh, okay, yes, very bad, Nazeem. You shouldn’t…” Anyway afterwards in the car, she was like, “What was the joke?” And I told her and she just laughed, found it very funny. So I never really knew how to do comedy. I learned the hard way, by making mistakes, getting in trouble. That hasn’t stopped. I’m still getting in trouble, if you look at any of the comments under my videos.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

By 2013, you had your own show, your first, you know, I guess solo show…

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Called Legally Brown. And in that show, kind of like Sacha Baron Cohen, you go out into the streets, you interact with people and you provoke responses and now knowing a little bit about your childhood and your upbringing this is like totally normal for you. This approach was like, oh, this is what I’ve been doing all my life. Let’s just kind of, you know, scale it up.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Oh absolutely. Like to be honest, I have to ask myself, is there something wrong with me? Because a lot of the show was those, you know, stand up in studio, then sketches, which are scripted and acted, and then sort of stunts, which are sometimes made with a clipboard going up to someone with hidden cameras. Or we’d have like a fake– there’d be a studio so that you could see the cameras, but I would be pretending to be a guru or a doctor. And then this unsuspecting person would come in – set up by their friend – thinking that they’re going to meet a real doctor who’s going to treat them, but it just ends up being bonkers. Just stupid stuff. But people would watch that they’d go, “Oh, oh my God, How the hell did you do that? Oh, my God. That’s so, you’re crazy. How?” I’m always like, why is it that this is normal to me, but not for others– Like it wasn’t even difficult for me to do that. But I think looking back, it is definitely my childhood. Like even just, you know, everything from, something as like, pretending to be underage to get in, to eat free at restaurants or, you know, when they give out freebies at the shop, my mum’s like, “Go back again.” And I would go back again. And they’re like, “Did you come already?” “No, no.” Just looking at them straight in the eyes and just lying. Like, I guess we were trained like by my mum to fool strangers to get by. But it was, it was lots of fun.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

You had this one well-known sketch where you pretend to be different, famous people of colour giving autographs. I think this thing has gone viral several times over, including like the Indian cricket star, Sachin Tendulkar, Will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas. Even Jackie Chan. None of whom look remotely like you.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah, the Jackie Chan one was ridiculous. Yeah.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

One that takes a certain level of gall, but there must have been a point why you’re impersonating these people that look nothing like you. But you seem to be convincing folks that you are them. You must’ve been surprised by how it went.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

The concept started– and in studio I set the piece up, you know, and go, “I sometimes I get confused for blah.” In Australia, there’s not many, well, now there’s more. But when I first started doing stuff on television, there was not many people of colour, definitely not many brown men. And there’s a guy, he’s an Egyptian Muslim, Waleed Aly. And he looks nothing like me, but we get confused for each other all the time. Me for him more than him for me. But it’s just ridiculous because you think, okay, there’s only two people on TV. Surely that must mean mathematically you have more of a chance of getting it right. Like, I don’t confuse different white faces. Actually, I kind of do. But anyway, so it started from that. And people sometimes when they see me on the street, they know they know me from somewhere, but they don’t even stop to think about it. They’re like, “Oh, hey, have a good game tomorrow.” Or the other day someone said, “Really liked on The Conversation Hour how you spoke about going back to Wodonga” which is some town in Australia. And I was like, “Oh, did I?” Like, “Yeah, yeah, that’s so sweet. The way you spoke about blah blah” and it was too much effort to and also, I didn’t couldn’t be bothered wading through their embarrassment when I tell them they’ve got me confused with someone else. But anyway, so that was a basis for this sketch and yeah, started it off. Will.i.am. More people recognized me as, like they got so excited. Queues of people waiting. Jackie Chan was the silly one that we ended on because we’re like, surely it has to be… At some point people must go, No, he’s not, Jackie Chan. But Muralitharan, like he’s a Sri Lankan cricketer. We actually didn’t air that segment because I actually do look quite like him. So he’d be the only other brown guy I guess who you could be like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But I don’t get it. It’s just… There’s no reason to confuse me with these people.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Your work has always been compelling to me Nazeem because, you know, part of it is that it’s, ballsy and unafraid and wacky. And part of me as a viewer thinks, is this actually going to work? And then it works. And you’re like, how is he doing it? He’s got this magic power. But then I think back to your work, like with your friend and co-conspirator, Aamer Rahman.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yes, Aamer.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Yeah in Fear of a Brown Planet, which is where I first sort of met your work. And you know what was so exciting about Fear of a Brown Planet was it was just so plain speaking and unafraid and confident. And I think in that post-9/11 period where there was a lot of fear and a lot of uneasiness, you know, Fear of a Brown Planet, it spoke to me as a hip hop head, Fear of a Black Planet. But it also spoke to kind of our generation and said, you know, our voice, our critical voice and our funny voice and our probing questions are really important now more than ever.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Isn’t it funny bro that like that material still works now. It’s almost like it was super edgy back then because people were like, oh, he’s saying, white people or brown people or they’re like making fun of a dominant culture, which was just seen as like ‘what the?’ Whereas now everyone’s very literate with like, you know, brown people, white people, Black people, critical race theory. So those jokes are now going in a way viral again. And even like that Legally Brown stuff, back then it was sort of niche viewing, but now it’s just kind of got a life of– there’s a new generation of young white and brown and black, like young people now are interested in this sort of stuff. That whole thing, I guess, was born out of us just… We love comedy and love standup, but it’s almost like we never really had anywhere to vent or rant. And so standup was just perfect for us. We love doing standup, but also you can just say what you think. You don’t need to figure out how to get it on television or whether a producer is going to okay it or commissioning editor– like you could just say what you think. There’s an audience there of people who laugh as much as they clap and punch the air. It was a really crazy time. And you know, people use the word crazy. But it was a crazy time. And for me, I guess Fear of Brown Planet was something that probably kept me on the sane side of the fence and probably Aamer as well.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

You guys were doing it in Australia, it was resonating with me because I was living in the UK at the time. It was resonating with friends in the United States and Canada and stuff that we were talking about. And there was something that came up, I think, in your 2019 Netflix special, Public Frenemy, which was really awesome. And you have this kind of long bit in that special where you talk about being questioned by Australian intelligence agents. And I can say, you know, I’ve been there, And I think there is that moment, isn’t there Nazeem, where you get into that conversation and you think, hey, this is, we’ll be alright. We’ll be good. And then there’s this moment in the conversation where like this could go to places where things could get really terrifying and dangerous. But for you, I feel like there’s like a third level of consciousness, which must be like, huh, I wonder if this’ll be good stuff for my act.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

[laughs]

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Talk me through that, talk me through the various stages of being considered, literally a public enemy.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

When stuff like that happens to me, probably in the moment, I can’t process things comedically. Like I do get into fight or flight. And I realize that I get rattled really quickly. You know, I studied law but being in like a police interview or like an interview with, like, secret agents. You know, I forget like that I have rights. I’m just immediately this kid trying to prove my innocence. And yeah, like, I remember getting sweaty palms and just, like elevated heart rate, I was freaking out, thinking of the worst outcomes. So I’m never like, oh, this is funny. I remember on the way to that interview calling my friend just to sort of let him know that I was going into this interview, even though they said that I shouldn’t tell anybody about it. I remember sort of saying, “Hey. Can you call me back in 2 hours?” And he’s like, “Why? What’s up?” I’m like, “Oh, just make sure you do.” He goes, “Why? Just tell me now. What do you want to talk about?” I’m like, he didn’t get it, but I just remember freaking out like, oh, no, I’m dead. Because they could detain me, I remember for, like, I think up to 21 days with no charge or no arrest. And so I was just like, this is it. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me. I don’t know what things I might have had on my phone or conversations that I’ve been a part of. So I’m a comedian. Like the backstage at a comedy room is seditious enough, let alone also being Muslim. So yeah. After those things happened, then I guess my brain immediately goes to comedy. That’s how I process. You know, some people talk to their girlfriends or their boyfriends. I just go, oh, I’m going to say this on stage. So I remember speaking to my friend who’s a lawyer, and I said, “Can I talk about this?” And he said, “Well, let me ask.” So he spoke to a top barrister in Australia, and he said, “So long as what you say doesn’t compromise national security interests, you’re okay.” So he went through some of the stuff. Anyway, he gave me the okay, but then I still freaked out about it for about a year and I shouldn’t talk about it. Because it was like, I remember they dropped in facts into the conversation just casually, I guess, to let me know that they know things about my life that only I would know. And that only my family would know. But then I don’t know, I just… some point I just spoke about it, got big laughs and then I was like, well, now I’m doing this. [laughs]

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Yeah. And I think I think also when you get validated with the laughs.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

It’s kind of empowering. It’s like, all right, if they take me away now.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah, yeah.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

A lot of people know about it. I’ve shared this story. They’re laughing about it. When they drag me away, hopefully they won’t laugh.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah, exactly.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

You know, I think about, you know, you’ve been in the public eye for over a decade now.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

In the Australian public eye.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

In the great Australian public eye. But you know, you’ve had multiple television and online shows, you’ve had Netflix specials. And I guess, at the point you’re at now, you’re partner to a wonderful spouse. You’re a dad to wonderful kids. Do you feel like the work, the comedy, the hustle – because it is a hustle – has made a difference in Australia? And I guess has it made a difference in the way your fellow citizens, not only think about Muslims and brown people, but think about the deeper issues of racism, inequality and what it really means to live in a society that embraces all?

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

It’s very easy to not really think about that or even to think it has no effect. Maybe that’s a humility thing because I’m a humble guy. No, but also, you know, you just think it’s not real. But then you do occasionally, you can see the impact that it might have had on someone. And it’s never like in a big way. It’s always like someone personally telling you a story, whether in person or in a message, someone saying, “Hey, I was really sick at one point in time and I watched your videos and it was the only thing that put a smile to my face.” Or someone will meet you on the street and tell you how like you made them not hate a group of people because they just found you funny. This might not even be what you’re saying, it’s more just that they like you as a person. And I think that’s sometimes just the mere visibility. And just so they get to know you. And, you know, there’ve been all sorts of studies in Australia about how to overcome racism. And really what they say is like at the end of the day, it’s the person-to-person connections that kind of cut through everything. Someone can convince you with words maybe, but if you meet and know somebody, you will trust that relationship over any counterargument. So I think being a person of profile in Australia has allowed people to feel like that they know me as a friend sometimes. And I’ve done a reality television show once and through that I think people– I feel like my comedy since doing that show, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here, has meant that I don’t need to qualify who I am before I get to the punchline. I don’t have to position myself on stage, “Hey, I’m one of you. I’m not a threat, you know, I’m like you.” I can just get to the punchline and they know where my heart’s at.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I mean talking about, you know, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here. I think the height of celebrity has to be hosting a Christmas special on TV. I mean, talk about…

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Oh my god.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Like being the iconic face of Christmas. And there you were a Sri Lankan Muslim Australian kid who’s now come up in comedy, a bonafide celebrity and you’re doing a Christmas special. I also did a double take, but not in a like, “oh haram kind of way”, but I was kind of like, “Nazeem’s doing what? What? He’s doing a Christmas special?” How did that go?

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

It was honestly like– if you told me… even any other time, like, “Hey, you’re going to host a Christmas show on television on the ABC.” Like it’s the BBC. I still can’t even really wrap my head around it. It was really nice. Again, like I think in Australia – I don’t know how it is in Canada – but like being religious is becoming increasingly weird. And I think there is a growing solidarity amongst religious folk to have each other’s back a little bit and I really like the company of religious people because it makes me feel understood more. Like they do weird things. We do weird things. But there’s an appreciation of the sacred. Like there is some sort of solidarity. But it wasn’t a religious Christmas show, but it was nice to host a stand up show where religion wasn’t the punchline. You know?

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I love it.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Because, oh my god, I’m just so over doing gigs. And just whenever Christianity or God is mentioned, it’s just a dumb punchline. It’s just, I find it really dumb.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

And lazy.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Just lazy and just like mischaracterizing lots of people. And I get like, you know, religious institutions have been responsible for all sorts of stuff. But, you know, again, it’s just kind of like the way I guess you could call Muslims terrorists, calling religious people x, y, it’s the same sort of thing. It’s like, alright.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I feel like as Muslims, we do need to have a serious chat about Christmas.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts?

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I honestly feel like and I felt for a long time we had these wonderful celebrations in Muslim cultures around the world of Mawlid al-Nabi and the birth of the Prophet Muhammad where were marking this kind of celebration. And we know that different, you know, histories of Islam place the prophet’s birth on different days and different times. And yet we’ve chosen a day and we’ve decided that, look, this is going to be at least a symbolic day in which we really remember and celebrate and gather. And all these beautiful things happen around the Mawlid celebrations. And in many ways, for me, Christmas feels very similar. It feels like we have this incredible narrative of Jesus’s, this remarkable, powerful birth narrative in the Koran. And I just feel like it’s like a moment where we can say, this is a pretty important event in the grand arc of human history. And I can celebrate–

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Get around that.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Yeah, I can get around that idea. Now, I don’t know what that entirely looks like. And I haven’t really thought about it farther than that, but, but I do feel that there’s something about–

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

It’s a good opportunity.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

About Christmas that is, that is like an opening for really sharing love.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Yeah. And we debate the– I guess Jesus’s end and look obviously we can debate the date. But I guess his birth is… we’re all on a similar page.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I feel like the sentiment is right.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

The sentiment’s right. And you know Muslims have deep respect for Jesus. We named our son Isa, Jesus in Arabic

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Oh how beautiful.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Because there’s just such beautiful qualities and it’s a nice name. And, you know, it’s like, why not? It’s already there. The day is already there. There’s a lot of attention on– what do Muslims even do on Christmas? We just hang out with other Muslims when the shops are closed. I don’t know what you guys do over there, but like we just, there’s barbecues and you know. It’s kind of like a Muslim Christmas hang out day.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I wonder, before we wrap up Nazeem, in what way is comedy for you or is comedy for you also a spiritual practice?

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

You know what. Sometimes it goes both– it is a spiritual practice, definitely, in that everything is high wire. It’s very easy to betray your beliefs and say things that are not good, that are horrible, making fun of someone or some group of people that shouldn’t be made fun of, that are ordinarily belittled. So you can really use it for not good and feed yourself, feed your ego and feel really good about it. You know, like you walk on stage and people are clapping and cheering and they bought tickets and they’re there to see you and they love seeing you and they’re very excited about you and all that sort of stuff. That is not good for the soul. But having said that, I guess the challenge is to be aware of that and keep that at bay, keep that in check. That’s the part of the spiritual practices, I guess, which is kind of remaining grounded. Also remembering that you have this platform and that just like you can use it for not good things, you can say some great things. There is the risk that you might lose some things. So deciding to spend some of your currency and risk your career at times I think is a choice that you have to sometimes make. And at times I feel like I’ve made those choices because I’ve had to consider what my Islamic obligation is. But at times, I’ve also thought, you know what? I just, I just can’t right now. There’s more at stake. And I’m scared about losing income and losing reputation. So I don’t. And then I stay awake at night thinking, should I have said something? Should I have done something about this particular issue or that matter?

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Yeah, yeah.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

This career is a really weird one. It’s not, there’s not like, “You’ve made it into comedy. Enjoy your career.” It’s just it is what you make it and you’re constantly faced with challenges, ethical dilemmas. And you make the right and wrong decisions. And sometimes it’s clear that you made the right or wrong decision. You have to sit with that and then try and make a better one next time.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Tell me Nazeem about a joy or a meanness that came to you recently as an unexpected visitor.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

My wife was putting to sleep our one-year-old. This is just after like a couple of nights of absolute sleep deprivation. And then my son, who I was just about to bathe, just runs out of the room and just bangs on the door and just goes “Ha ha ha” and wakes up the baby and then runs back to the bath. And me and my wife, we’re both just like, Oh my god, I don’t have any more patience. But then you look at his face and he’s just so happy and pleased with himself, like he knows he’s done something naughty, he’s done a prank, or he’s done something just that’s got a big reaction with consequence. And you just can’t help but just kind of lose all that frustration and just go, this is actually what it’s supposed to be about. This is just innocence and our baby’s crying and me and my wife are connected here with like this frustration, but also just like, look at the present. This is why we’re here on Earth.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Nazeem it’s been such a pleasure to reconnect with you. It’s been such a pleasure to hear about where things are at. It’s been an honour to have you with us on This Being Human.

 

NAZEEM HUSSAIN: 

Thank you very much for having me, bro. I really appreciate this. This chat has made me feel light and like, yeah, I just want to start the day again.

 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Thank you for listening to This Being Human. We’ll include selections of Nazeem Hussain’s work in the show notes.

 

This Being Human is produced by Antica Productions in partnership with TVO. Our senior producer is Kevin Sexton. Our associate producer is Hailey Choi. Our executive producer is Laura Regehr. Stuart Coxe is the president of Antica Productions.

 

Mixing and sound design by Phil Wilson. Original music by Boombox Sound.

 

Shaghayegh Tajvidi is TVO’s Managing Editor of Digital Video and Podcasts. Laurie Few is the executive for digital at TVO.

 

This Being Human is generously supported by the Aga Khan Museum. Through the arts, the Aga Khan Museum sparks wonder, curiosity, and understanding of Muslim cultures and their connection with other cultures. For more information about the museum go to www.agakhanmuseum.org

 

The Museum wishes to thank The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation for their generous support of This Being Human.